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4 Easy Steps to Buying Your First or Fifth House

After months of searching online and getting nowhere, here you are. Now you know the 4 Easy steps to buying a home.

First, as 90% of buyers today, start with a home search online. As long as you’re here why not search here? We have all active listings shown on North Alabama’s MLS index. In addition to our MLS I also offer several “For Sale By Owner listings”. That is an extra step in giving you every option to find the perfect house.

Second, You found it! Congratulations! I knew if you started here you could more than likely finish here. Wasn’t that easier than driving around town for countless hours hoping to see “the house” around the next corner.

Third, this is the fun part. All you have to do is sit back and let years of negotiating and getting the best deals for our clients, work for you.

Fourth, Sure there were several points in the process that were high pressure or potential deal breakers, but you didn’t need to stress over any of them. We always keep a positive outlook and keep the process moving forward. Now we celebrate the big moving day.

Yes, it is that easy. Give it a try.

 

infographic-online-home-search

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7 Local Backyard Oases You Want to See

I’ve seen many housees in the past years that I would not schedule a return without protection in some form or fasion. Iv’e also seen houses that made me want to stay for a few hours and just relax. The latter being the exception. I thought it might be neat to put together a short and sweet ppost showing some of the great local backyard oases in and around my area. The following are several pools and outdoor kitchens you may want to look into a bit closer. Feel free to comment and or share.

 

custom-concrete pool

Pool with a fountain
Pool with a fountain
Custom Stone raised pool
Custom Stone raised pool

 

Custom Outdoor Kitchen with tongue groove ceiling
Custom Outdoor Kitchen with tongue groove ceiling

 

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Custom concrete with fountain

 

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Outdoor Kitchen overlooking pool

 

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Custom Heated Pool with Mountain views

 

If any of these homes interest you and you would like to take a closer look, feel free to contact me for a showing appointment.

 

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Fannie Mae Shows Signs of a Recovering Market

2013 was an extraordinary year for a lot of Real Estate Pros. Many conversations about the housing market are ending in a much different matter than they had in years past. Lately the story is, “Wow”, We are really seeing an increase in home prices and a decrease in inventory”. Years ago this comment would have been accompanied with a graphic of a donkey with mouth wide open laughing hysterically.

The Real Estate market is definitely showing signs of growth and movement. Today home prices are beginning to slightly increase and whispers of a “Sellers Market” are rolling off agents tongues. This truly makes people a little more comfortable with the country still trying to pull out of the recent crash. All of this still would simply be mostly “lip Service” if not for the the giants of the mortgage market producing such impressive numbers. Let’s take a look at Fannie Mae and data released in a recent article by Timothy J. Mayopoulos President and Chief Executive Officer, Fannie Mae 

In the statement Fannie Mae reveals their financial performance, over the past few years, has improved significantly, and in 2013 reported “84.0 billion in net income and $38.6 billion in pre-tax income, the highest annual income and annual pre-tax income in our company’s history”. In addition to this improvement Fannie Mae also has strengthened the underwriting and eligibility standards as so to promote a more sustainable housing market as related to homeownership.

In addition to developing stronger requirements for home buying eligibility, Fannie Mae has also worked to help owners avoid foreclosure by “completing more than 1.5 million workout solutions since 2009. In 2013, we completed 234,000 foreclosure prevention solutions. Less than 1 percent of the single-family loans in our book went into foreclosure in 2013, and we strive to help every at-risk family find an alternative to foreclosure.”

Below is a graphic giving a few numbers to grow on. Take a look and decide for yourself if you still should be standing on the sidelines or if it is time to Move forward?

fannie mae numbers at a glance

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Reports Indicate Another Housing Slowdown | Via Inman News

New reports point to housing slowdown | Inman News.

 

Economic reports released today show that activity in two sectors of the housing market dropped to its lowest levels in more than a year, providing some of the latest evidence that elevated mortgage rates and home prices may have slowed the pace of the real estate recovery.

Housing slowdown before real growth

“Housing is not about to collapse into another bust, but it is due for a pause after a strong rebound since the first half of 2012,” wrote David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, explaining the thrust of the reports.

For the week ending Feb. 14, a seasonally adjusted purchase index from the Mortgage Bankers Association hit its lowest level since September 2011, the trade group said today. On an unadjusted basis, demand for purchase loans for the week dropped 17 percent from the same week a year before.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported today that housing starts in January hit a 17-month low, falling 7 percent year over year to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 573,000, a figure that dovetails with the National Association of Home Builders’ finding yesterday that builder confidence plunged in February.

Other indicators also point to a slowdown. Pending home sales and existing-home sales have trended down in recent months, though one of the few brights spots in recent housing data are new-home sales, which grew at a fast clip in January.

Some trade groups and analysts have said that the unusually cold weather has contributed to weakening activity in the housing market.

“While we don’t want to dismiss out of hand the downbeat message of these measures of residential construction activity, we think that they largely reflect a correction from the sharp gain in starts in November and the recent unseasonably severe weather,” Capital Economics, an economic research firm, said in response to the report on housing starts.

The biggest impetus for the recent slump, however, may be substantial increases in both home prices and mortgage rates. The combination of both has pushed up the cost of financed homeownership by roughly a quarter from last year in more than 300 counties nationwide, according to a report data aggregator RealtyTrac is set to release tomorrow.

“Last year was a nice bounce-back year for the housing market, particularly home prices, but we cannot expect to see the patterns of 2013 repeat in 2014,” said RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist. “This year will be more of a reality check type of year as home prices and sales slow down to allow incomes and confidence to catch up.”

More from Teke Wiggin

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2014/02/19/new-reports-point-to-housing-slowdown/#sthash.hGvhs6HV.dpuf

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North Alabama Area school closings for Winter storm

EXIT

 

 

 

Alabama A&M Universitydelayed until 10am Tuesday
Albertville City Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Arab City Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Athens City Schoolsdelayed 2 hours Tuesday
Athens State Universitydelayed until 10am Tuesday
Bethel Baptist Schooldelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Boaz City SchoolsClosed Tuesday
Cherokee County Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Colbert County Schoolsdelayed until 10am Tuesday
Cornerstone Christian Schooldelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Country Day Schooldelayed until 10:30am Tuesday
Covenant Christian Schooldelayed until 10am Tuesday
Cullman City Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Cullman County Schoolsclosed Tuesday
DeKalb County Schoolsdelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Etowah County Schoolsclosed Tuesday
First Baptist Child Dev Centeropening 9am Tuesday
Florence City Schoolsdelayed 2 hours Tuesday
Franklin County Schools (AL)delayed 3 hours Tuesday
Ft Payne City Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Gadsden State Community CollegeAll campuses closed Tuesday
Guntersville City Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Hartselle City Schoolsdelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Huntsville City SchoolsDelayed 2 hours Tuesday
J. F. Drake State Technical Collegeopening 10am Tuesday
Jackson County Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Lauderdale County Schoolsdelayed until 10am Tuesday
Lawrence County Schoolsdelayed 2 hours Tuesday
Limestone County Schoolsdelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Madison Academydelayed until 10am Tuesday
Madison City Schoolsdelayed 2 hours Tuesday
Madison County Schoolsdelayed 2 hours Tuesday
Mars Hill Bible Schooldelayed until 10am Tuesday
Marshall County Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Muscle Shoals City Schoolsdelayed 2 hours Tuesday
Northwest-Shoalsdelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Oakwood Adventist Academydelayed until 10am Tuesday
Russellville City Schoolsdelayed 3 hours Tuesday
Scottsboro City Schoolsclosed Tuesday
Sheffield City Schoolsdelayed until 10am Tuesday
Snead State Community Collegeclosed Tuesday
St Bernard Prep Schoolclosed Tuesday
Tuscumbia City Schoolsdelayed until 10am Tuesday
Virginia Collegeopening 10am Tuesday
Wallace State Community CollegeClosing at 3 p.m. Monday, evening classes cancelled
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It’s too cold to look

You hear it all the time in the late months, “It’s just too cold today to look for a house”. I agree it does get soo cold. Today for instance it will only get to 20°! Makes me shiver a bit talking about it. It is hard to get yourself moving when your bones and frozenmuscles are screaming to get back in the heat.

 

 

 

I say get a warm shower or bath to wake up your body and bundle up. Get up the car and go find a house. It’s kinda like guys not wanting to go to the mall on black Friday. There is no way in hell they are going to fight the crowds when they can procrastinate and get just as good a deal. So think about it. When does everyone want to look for new houses or go to open houses?, when it’s warm out. Everyone wants to look at the same time, so you have to jockey for the right house and possibly have to get in a bidding war. Don’t get into a bid war. Get up, get out and find the perfect house that you don’t have to fight anyone for. It’s your house, claim it.muscles are frozen and not wanting to acknowledge what you need to do.

ModernIglooAlaskaParksHighway3

We all get caught up in what everyone else is doing, you know like everyone wants to go to the beach on Memorial day. It’s so much easier going on a different weekend, not to mention more affordable. Wait a couple of weekends and see the difference.

If you dig that sort of thing then by all means do it. If you want to get the best deal possible then try getting those bones in motion when it’s colder than Pluto outside and see what you can do.biglots-black-friday

I am your North Alabama Realtor

I strive to make it Simple